Page:The story of geographical discovery.djvu/69

 Rh identifies these Cathayans with the Seres of the ancients. Ptolemy knew of these as possessing the land where the silk comes from, but he had also heard of the Singe, and failed to identify the two. It has been conjectured that the name of China came to the West by the sea voyage, and is a Malay modification, while the names Seres and Cathayans came overland, and thus caused confusion.

Other Franciscans followed these, and one of them, John of Montecorvino, settled at Khanbalig (imperial city), or Pekin, as Archbishop (ob. 1358); while Friar Odoric of Pordenone, near Friuli, travelled in India and China between 1316 and 1330, and brought back an account of his voyage, filled with the most marvellous mendacities, most of which were taken over bodily into the work attributed to Sir John Maundeville.

The information brought back by these wandering friars fades, however, into insignificance before the extensive and accurate knowledge of almost the whole of Eastern Asia brought back to Europe by Marco Polo, a Venetian, who spent eighteen years of his life in the East. His travels form an epoch in the history of geographical discovery only second to the voyages of Columbus.

In 1260 his father and uncle, Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, set out from Constantinople on a trading venture to the Crimea, after which they were led to visit Bokhara, and thence on to the court of the Great -Khan, Kublai, who received them very graciously, and being impressed with the desirability of introducing Western civilisation into the new Mongolian 5